It Worked. I Ran. I Got Smarter.

I finally went out running today.  There were simply no excuses left.  No snow to shovel.  Not meetings to rush off to.  I didn't hike or bike.  And I'd just posted the article on running making you smarter. 

Chester Creek Bike Trail

The bike trail was better than I expected.  They've obviously done some grooming - you can see that snow has been pushed to the sides.


And parts with more sunshine even were bare to the pavement.  But the boggy area to the right which is mostly frozen will be flooding parts of the trail as things thaw.

And some parts of the bog - here right up against the snow berms on the side of the trail - are just water.

Smarter? When I got home I saw that the title for that post was "Running Make You Smarter" so I fixed it. Obviously the running was already working. I know the running does more than the walking or biking because when I run I'm always pushing my pulse up and challenging my lungs to keep me in oxygen. And I sweat. That doesn't happen walking or biking.

"What Did The President Know and When Did He Know It?" Part : Asking The Right QuestionI

Neal Conan's after lunch talk at the Alaska Press Club was about asking the right question.  He gave two well known examples:

• Follow the money
• What did the president know and when did he know it?

I know.  The first isn't a question, but it directs you to ask questions. 

[Do I need to say that Neal Conan is NPR's Talk of the Nation host?]

But his point was that the question depends on the story. And a critical question at one point, may not be relevant to a new story and asking what the president knew about Iraq was the wrong question.   [I'm afraid that somewhere in his talk I got distracted.  Looking at my notes I think I have this,  but I'm not totally sure.  My apologies to Neal if I've misstated this.  The overall point is solid, but take my details with a grain of salt.]

He went on to say his biggest mistake and best story both came from asking the wrong question about Iraq.  As I understood, he was pursuing the story of weapons of mass destruction and whether Iraq had them [his answer was 'no' but Saddam didn't want to say this publicly because he wanted Iran to think he did].  Conan's big story was about a defecting Iraqi scientist who claimed there were secret weapons and had sought asylum with the American military in northern Iraq where Conan was reporting.

The question he said they should have been asking [I think] was, "What was the real reason Bush wanted to go into Iraq?  Conan said he missed this completely, and said it wasn't WMD or even oil. 

[These are my rough notes, cleaned up to make complete words and sentences. I think they capture what he said, but not his exact words.]

What was the real reason?  Why did they want to go to Iraq?  Oil wasn’t the reason.  As long as oil is pumping and getting into the market, it’s ok.  We can get it from somewhere else if ample supply. 

The Bush administration was honest when saying they wanted to establish an honest democracy and drain the swamp. They believed that Al Qaeda recruits from the poor.  If you change the political structures of the Middle East that we were so aligned with for so long, you could dry up Al Qaeda's supply of poor soldiers.  This was a hugely dangerous option.   Why did they think Iraq would change to become like the Netherlands instead of, say, Yugoslavia?  It took Tito to hold the ethnic divisions together.  Afghanistan is similar.  Forces had been unleashed by the Russian war and wouldn’t go back. . . Pashtun people upset all the other groups.  Why did we think Iraq’s ethnic groups held together by Saddam wouldn’t do the same?

. . .  I contributed to problems by not asking the right questions.  Why do we think this place after being held together by Saddam Hussein's . . . rings of spies [wouldn't fall apart into ethnic divisions like Yugoslavia or Afghanistan.]  We think of armies to win wars, but no, [many in the world] are there to hold the regime in power. 

There's a lot to digest after three days of the Alaska Press Club conference and the many thought-provoking speakers and I'm still processing what I heard and how it can help me improve my blogging.  There is no way I can do a full report on the conference.  The best I can do is pick up threads - like this one - and follow them a short way.  This helps me figure things out and lets readers have a peek into what went on.

So last night, reading Doris Kearns Goodwin's No Ordinary Time in bed after hearing Neal Conan,  I got to Franklin Roosevelt's Atlantic 'fishing trip' which turned into a secret meeting at sea with Winston Churchill in August 1941.  Part of the discussion at the "Atlantic Conference" was about the negotiations between the US and Japan.  Which brought to mind, Conan's mention of "What did the president know   . . .?" and the debate WW II buffs have had over whether President Roosevelt knew in advance about the Pearl Harbor attack.

I was going to include that here, but I think this is enough for one post and I'll follow up with another post on that topic. 

Running Makes You Smarter

It was easy to run when we were in LA earlier this year, but with all the snow we had, I switched to shoveling snow as my exercise.  I haven't been a total slug, but I know some serious and regular movement is needed.  The streets are clear of snow and I have no more excuses. 

It sounds like any good exercise will do.   


From Sunday's NYTimes:

For more than a decade, neuroscientists and physiologists have been gathering evidence of the beneficial relationship between exercise and brainpower. But the newest findings make it clear that this isn’t just a relationship; it is the relationship. Using sophisticated technologies to examine the workings of individual neurons — and the makeup of brain matter itself — scientists in just the past few months have discovered that exercise appears to build a brain that resists physical shrinkage and enhance cognitive flexibility. Exercise, the latest neuroscience suggests, does more to bolster thinking than thinking does .(emphasis added.)

Of course every week there is some new food or activity to add or avoid.  But walking and running have been on the good list a long time now.  None of these mean you (specfically) will or won't live longer and get smarter, but it means people in general will, and you might be in the group that does.

[UPDATE:  See follow up post:  It Worked, I Ran I Got Smarter. ]

Blogging Rewards - Connecting With Far Away Reader With a Post

Recent Email:

Hello,

I found your email address on your blog... and I found your blog because I've been searching bird song in Thailand for about two hours and I narrowed my search to trying to order Tony Ball's CD from a company in Holland that won't accept my Thai address and my French bank info... who could blame them. Somewhere in the Tony Ball google search your blog was quoted because you bought volumes one and two -- as it turns out, after actually going out with him as a guide!

I just want volume 1... and it feels like it SHOULD be easy to get since I'm IN Thailand!

I am NOT a birder. . . [She provided some personal information - an American living in Thailand who'd lived in Europe.]

You can't help but notice the birds here -- and I have seen at least one magnificent one that I can't find a picture of on line. But what is driving me crazy is that I am surrounded by their calls all morning and all evening but I can never find the one that's making a distinctive sound -- so I can't match sight and sound.

I don't want to study ALL birds -- I just want to know who's in my neighborhood... and I want to do that by sound.

That seemed simple until I started googling this morning!

Can you please help by sending me contact info for Tony Ball?

(When I go to his site, all that kind of info is in Thai!)

Thanks in advance,

EM

Google makes it possible for EM living in Chiang Mai, Thailand to find me in Anchorage, Alaska to help her get in touch with Tony Ball, back in Chiang Mai.  So I contacted Tony and emailed her back with his email address and a link I made to a post about ten common birds in Chiang Mai. It also let me revisit our wonderful Saturday morning birding with Tony Ball.
I got a second email:  

Greater Racket-Tailed Drongo

Oh I am so SO excited! There he is! Yes, of course Tony Ball is exciting too, but I mean "my" magnificent and heretofore nameless bird is number 2 on your blog list! A Racket-Tailed Drongo! 

And that fat one with the rust-colored wings is a Greater Coucal?

My computer (like me) is old and slow and can't download the latest Flash whatever, so I can't see your video... but because I had the names now, I could go to youtube, and there I found the sound I've been looking for! 

There must be a very large and very lonely Asian Male Koel in the neighborhood because you can hear that mating call on all three "soys".

I love that most of my "mysteries" are already solved AND that I am now able to consult the bird expert directly!

I can't thank you enough!

God willing and the creek don't rise I will be able to "book" Tony for a walk around my neighborhood -- I'll be sure to send you a report on that!

I'll send a separate email to Tony Ball -- I'm really looking forward to meeting him!

Best regards,

Just got an email cc from Tony that she's going to come by and get her CD and they'll plan a birding walk in her neighborhood.   And I love the drongos with those long tails with the feathers at the end.  You can hear them and the koel on the video here.  And it took forever to get that picture of the drongo flying.  Living on the 5th floor surrounded by tree tops helped. 

Judge Rejects Redistricting Board's Amended Proclamation Plan

I'm in a workshop on doing video by Ted Warren from AP.  It's reassuring that at least there is something I'm up to speed on, plus there are good tips for improvement.

But I just checked my email and a reader sent me a copy of the Judge McConahy's order on the Amended Proclamation plan.

Let me get this up now and I'll add more later.   This seems to be the key sentence in the ruling, but I'll have to read more.  I can't cut and paste the pdf I got. 

Essentially, the Board's been told to do a real Hickel process and I suspect the Board is not going to be pleased.  I'm not sure the order is completely realistic - the Board is told to redo Southeast Alaska without consideration of VRA.  My sense is that you have to take both the constitution and VRA into consideration at the same time.


UPDATE:  3:05pm  I'm attaching a copy of the whole order. 120420_Order - Order Remanding Alaska Redistricting Amended Plan Back To Board April 20, 2012

Way Too Busy With AQR, Press Club, Confucius Institute, and More Redistricting Stuff

Wednesday night I went to the 30th Anniversary Celebration of the Alaska Quarterly Review.  The new volume includes a remembrance of the two stellar photojournalists who died in Libya Tim Hetherington, and Chris Hondros almost exactly one year ago.  Anchorage raised photographer Benjamin Spatz coordinated the collection of photos representing With Liberty and Justice for All from 68 outstanding photographers who knew the two men.  At the event at the Anchorage Museum were two of the photographers who submitted photos, original Good Morning America host Dave Hartman and two time Pulitzer Prize winning photographer Barbara Davidson.  This event deserves a longer post of its own, but it's late and so I'm just putting up these two photos of Hartman and Davidson with the photos they submitted.  You can get a copy of the 30th Anniversary issue of the AQR - truly a nationally and internationally recognized literary journal published right here in Anchorage - here.  Or try some local bookstores. Or a good out of state bookstore.  They sold all the copies they brought Wednesday night. 

Then Thursday I went to the radio day of the Alaska Press Club.  I finally decided I should join this organization and go to their conference so I could learn something about what I'm doing here and how to do it better.

Not sure how much I'll improve, but it won't be from lack of great discussion from masters of radio.  OK, I don't do radio, but much of the wisdom imparted can easily be adapted to video.  It was good timing for me because I've been thinking about my rather raw style and why I think it's appropriate here.  While I'm not backing off, I did get some good ideas to at least modify my ideas and maybe improve my technique.

Neal Conan

First there was Jason LeRose from NPR West.






And then came Neal Conan.  It was quite eerie when he opened his mouth and this voice floated out - a voice I know so well from Talk of the Nation and other shows he's done on NPR.  And now it was attached, so to speak, to an actual physical human being.   I'll post more about this later, but just want to explain why I've been so busy.


I'll get back to this.  But I was a bit confused and went to hear Howard Weaver in the bookstore.  It turns out he'll be there at 4pm on Friday.  But Thursday there was a talk by Chinese Fulbright Scholar Wei Jaijiang on A Contrastive Study of Chinese and English Emotional Metaphors.  I have to go to bed now, it's after 2am and there is more Press Club starting about 9am.  So I won't get into details of the talk.  But I got to meet the director of the Confucius Institute and the instructors and I may have committed myself to try to pick up on where I left off in Chinese.  There's quite a bit in my brain, but it has a great deal of difficulty getting out of my brain via my tongue these days.  Possibly I can dislodge some of that vocabulary and syntax, not to mention the characters.

I just want you to know I'm not goofing off here.   Oh yes, the Redistricting Board put up the responses to their latest submission.  I only barely opened one and haven't had time to read it yet.  Here are the documents:

OBJECTIONS 
Fairbanks North Star Borough
Aleutians East Borough
City of Petersburg
Calista Corporation
Bristol Bay Native Corporation
RIGHTS Coalition
Riley Plaintiffs

RESPONSE
Alaska Redistricting Board

Here's what's scheduled tomorrow at the press club:

9 – 10:15 a.m.
Telling stories through photography
 Barbara Davidson will discuss long-form photo storytelling and ways to use narrative and storytelling in shorter-form daily journalism. Rasmuson Hall 101

Carolyn Ryan critique
Carolyn Ryan, metro editor at the New York Times, critiques stories written on deadline. Three works will be reviewed. Stories with multi-media components will be given priority. Rasmuson Hall 111

One-on-one coaching (radio)
With NPR’s Jason DeRose, APRN’s Lori Townsend and Annie Feidt, CoastAlaska’s Ed Schoenfeld, UAA’s Elizabeth Arnold and others. Rasmuson Hall 316

10:30 – 11:45 a.m.
Covering religion
The nuts and bolts of covering religious issues and institutions, from sex-abuse scandals to denominational conflicts to involvement in local politics. With Jason DeRose, NPR Western Bureau chief and former religion reporting instructor at DePaul University and Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. He also holds a master’s degree from the University of Chicago Divinity School. Rasmuson Hall 101
Personal photojournalism u u Richard Murphy, long-time photo editor at the Anchorage Daily News and Atwood Chair at UAA, will show recent work made with an iPhone and talk about what he’s discovered about the tool in a reprise of his popular lecture

“Professional photojournalism to personal photojournalism or how my cell phone set me free.” Rasmuson Hall 111
Polling the pollsters: It’s all in the numbers
We’ve all seen pre-election numbers, approval surveys and other statistics offering public opinion information. But where do they come from and how do they work? How can two polls sometimes offer such different results? Get the lowdown on polling and information research— and find out how to best use these numbers in your reporting — at this panel featuring some of Alaska’s top specialists: Jean Craciun is CEO of Craciun Research, where she helps businesses and organizations deal with changing environments and reforming industry sectors. David L. Dittman (Dittman Research and Communications Corporation) is widely recognized as Alaska’s senior public opinion analyst. Ivan Moore, Ivan Moore Research, is a public opinion pollster based in Anchorage who works with both Democratic and Republican candidates. Moderated by UAF Journalism Professor Lynne Lott. Rasmuson Hall 316

1:15 – 2:30 p.m.
Covering the military from the home front
Kimberly Dozier shares the lessons she learned the hard way when covering the military – how to learn how troops see the world, and the media, how to win their trust – and most importantly, represent both them and the U.S. public in reporting that pulls no punches. Rasmuson Hall 101

Simple videos for websites

Shooting and editing simple videos that can be easily used on media websites. This session is for reporters with limited background in video production. With Ted S. Warren, Associated Press. Rasmuson Hall 111

Notebook to page u KTUU’s Jason Lamb, ADN’s Kyle Hopkins and APRN’s Annie Feidt share tips and tricks for writing accurate, compelling stories quickly. Moderated by Julia O’Malley. Rasmuson 316

Sorry the formatting got messed up, but I really have to go to bed or I'll sleep through all this.

Guadalupe Marroquin, Former Anchorage Election Chief, Talks About The Election

OK, Lupe's official title used to be Municipal Deputy Clerk, in charge of running Municipal Elections and Budget Liaison, but that's too long for the title.  I first became aware of Lupe when she went to extraordinary lengths to make sure that we were able to fax our ballots from Thailand one year.  The time difference between Thailand and here meant we were faxing late at night and she was in the office at 6am to make sure it worked.

So, given the controversy over the recent election and the lack of ballots for some voters, I thought that it would be helpful to get some technical points clarified by someone who knows how this is supposed to work.  The video is long.  Almost 20 minutes.  I decided not to edit it, but rather to leave it all there and not decide for you what is important and what is not.  There are some breaks where I stopped the video and then started again.  Mainly I didn't want to have such long sections that take forever to download.  And sometimes we chatted while the camera was off.  But everything I videoed is there, even the part where she suggests I cut it because she didn't know the answer.  She's agreed that can stay in.  

Here's what I got out of the interview.

• There should have been a lot more ballots sent out to the polling places.  Lupe said when she used to do it, she'd look back three to six years and figured the highest turnout then add some more ballots for each polling place.  The highest turnout in the last two mayoral election was 35% in 2006.  If they had sent that many ballots out, there probably wouldn't have been a problem since only about 27% of voters went to the polling places to vote on Tuesday.
• While the folks that came to register and then vote or who weren't Anchorage residents because of Minnery's email, while problematic in their own right, were not the reason the polling places ran out of ballots.  She estimated that Minnery's email wouldn't have gotten more than about 300 people to the polling places.  We did the interview on Tuesday and Wednesday's Anchorage Daily News said there were 609 rejected ballots compared to 63 in the last mayoral election.  So that's a little higher than her estimate, but not enough to run out of ballots if they had enough to cover 35%.  There were 5,756 questioned ballots, three times, the number in 2009.  These include people who go to the wrong polling place.  But if half of the extra challenged ballots were the result of Minnery's email, the impact was higher than Lupe estimated, but still well under the 35% range of the 2006 election that they should have planned for. (Since there are about 204,000 registered voters, 1% would be about 2000 people. So even 4000 more people showing up would still only be in the 28 or 29% range.)
• There used to be two boards that monitored the elections. 
• The  Accuvote Testing Board which is made up of people working at the polls who test ballots to see if the machine counts them right.
• The Data Processing Review Board - this board has been eliminated.  They used to test the machines before and after the election.  They also sealed the cards into place to prevent tamperingl.  Now one of the issues is that the seal was broken on a number of the ballot boxes.    I did ask if there were ever any problems when they tested the boxes and she said no.  Maybe that's why the Board was eliminated.  But it seems that this is so fundamental to democracy that it's worth it to test.
• There's two kinds of programming
• The Deputy Clerk in charge of elections programs each ballot box.  What this means is that she punches in information about what will be on the ballots for that particular polling place.  Different polling places have different candidates and issues on the ballots, so each box has to be programmed separately.
• There is also programming of the card which enables it to accept the data from the Deputy Clerk and also tells it how to count the ballots.  Lupe was not involved with this part, but this is the part that would seem to be the most invisible and be most vulnerable to someone with good IT skills tampering.  
• Because Anchorage does not use touch screens and we have paper ballots, if there are questions, the ballots can be counted.
• This is probably an ideal time to have an investigation.
• Because none of the races is close, the investigation is unlikely to impact any race, so the pressure to impact a race will not be a factor in the investigation.  Unless things are much worse than I suspect.  

I would also mention that in some of our conversation when the video camera was not on, Lupe expressed respect for the professionalism with which the Municipal Clerk Barbara Gruenstein does her job.  My own limited experience with Barbara over the years has also been very positive.

Note:  I've used Viddler's onscreen comment feature to try to mark where I asked different questions.  Roll over the little white dots on the bottom of the screen to see where different questions were asked.  I'm afraid I was a little incoherent in some questions. 

If the Republicans don't 'get' women, it's also likely Democrats don't 'get' white males

When people talk about white males having all the power, for many white males it just doesn't ring true. They don't feel powerful. Their wives frustrate them constantly and their children don't listen to them. And at work there are all sorts of people and organizations that confound their efforts to get things done.

But, if we look at the heads of the powerful organizations in this country - from the presidency of the US, governors, legislators - federal and state - and CEO's of large corporations (and small ones), they are predominantly white males. Obama is the first president who is only half-white. So from this perspective it would appear that white males have all the power. But as I said, white males don't feel like they have all the power.

Most, for starters, aren't in those powerful positions. And even some in those positions know that while they have the title, there are a lot of counter forces that make it hard to do what they want to do.

 How did it happen that white males are in so many of the powerful positions? It would seem there are two main possible explanations.

1. White males are inherently superior to everyone else.  They got into those positions because they are just better than everyone else. Before the 1960's most people - at least the white males - believed this.

 2. The road to the top has more obstacles for non-whites and females than it has for white males.

Understanding the second explanation is, I think, the key to understanding how racism, sexism, and other isms continue to impact the people in the less powerful groups. Let me give some examples.

When my daughter was about 8 years old, she announced she was going to ride her bike to Heidi's house. That meant about a 3 mile bike ride, much of it on the wooded bike trail. I immediately was aware that what I was about to say to my daughter, I wouldn't have said to my son. And that this was unfair. Ummm, no, I think you are not going to ride alone on the bike trail to Heidi's.

There are few places in Anchorage that I would be fearful of walking - any time of day or night - by myself. But that is not the case for my wife or for other women I know. At the University I had absolutely no concern for my personal safety.  I'm not reckless, there just wasn't a threat.  I could work in my office late at night and walk on campus at any time.

But a female faculty member  was raped in her office at 3pm on a Sunday afternoon.

When it comes to clothing, women are expected to dress more carefully than men. And even when men have to dress up, there's a standard uniform - a suit and a tie. Traveling on business I can just stick one suit and several ties and shirts into a suitcase and I'm done. A woman doesn't have a standard uniform. She has to pick something that is 'appropriate' but doesn't call too much attention to her body.  She probably should have a different outfit for each day, maybe more.  She may have to take heels. Her hair has to be 'done.'

These are all little things, but they take time and energy. They are hurdles on the race to the top that men don't have to go over, or if they do, they are lower.   But cumulatively they add up.


Of course, there are much bigger hurdles.

When it comes to household and child-rearing responsibilities, women tend to be more burdened than men.  Woman in dual worker households continue to do more domestic work than their husbands.  And far more single mothers have the kids than the fathers.

Yesterday's post had examples of organizations during World War II that had explicit policies that Negroes could only do janitorial work if they could get a job at all. There are still stories today of hotels that have no vacancy when blacks ask for a room. Restaurant reservations that evaporate when a darker couple arrives.  And I know African-American men who wear suits and ties when they drive as an extra protection if they get stopped by the police.  For them racial profile is not an abstract concept. There was a recent report about one of India's top movie stars - Shah Rukh Khan - who was detained by the TSA for the second time and this time long enough that it forced him to postpone a speech he was to give at Yale University.  These are real obstacles.

Kahn's is the example of non-whites (I use that phrase to describe the universe of people who fit in this group recognizing that it makes white the norm, which is part of the problem I'm trying to illustrate) who may actually have power, but when they walk down the street, they go back to being second class citizens (I'm being polite here) to many people.  A good friend who was Commissioner of Labor for the State of Alaska, was standing in the Chicago airport, in a coat and tie, when someone came up to him and gave him their luggage to carry out to the car.  Just because he was black!

So much of this is invisible to passersby.  There are few signs today that say, "No Indians Allowed."  It may even be invisible to the victims themselves.  I worked with minority students who would ask, "Did I get a D because my paper is really that bad or because I'm black?"  Below is a 1991 Frontline piece that shows the different reception that a black and white male get when going into a store, looking for a job, and looking for an apartment.  It shows the obstacles that non-whites often have to overcome that simply aren't there for whites males. 





Does this mean white males have it easy?  

No way.  Our whole industrial capitalist system has offered us many products and labor saving devices that make our lives easier, richer, healthier, and just more fun.  But this all comes with a level of complication that challenges everyone, whether it's figuring out your cell phone or call waiting or your taxes.  Or getting health care.  The rules and paperwork and bills never seem to let up.

Life is both better and more stressful for everyone.  Dividing us by race or gender, whether it is some  conspiracy or genetically programmed into human beings,  pits groups against each other instead of seeking ways to make the whole system more user friendly to humans as a whole. White males don't have it easy.  But for the most part,  they've had it easier than everyone else. 

That doesn't mean that every black female's life is harder than every white male's life.  The daughter of a black physician and school teacher probably has advantages over the second son of a single white mom on welfare.  But if we look at similarly situated people - say an obese white male and an obese black male, with similar economic and educational backgrounds, the two share a lot of obstacles.  But the black man has the additional burdens of being black in America. 

If you are a suffering white male, there  are plenty of things you can point to and complain about.  I've heard it said that we tend to blame others for our problems and take credit for out successes.  Unemployed white males can point to things like Affirmative Action to show that they are discriminated against.  That could be a whole other post, but basically AA has leveled the playing field, to some extent, mostly for white women and to a lesser extent has helped other minorities.  It basically requires that "all things being equal, an underrepresented class should get the position."  While I'm sure it has been abused now and then, it still doesn't come near to making up the abuses against everyone but white males in the past.  But collective fairness is much harder to grasp than individual situations.  Plus there are lots of examples of using Affirmative Action as an excuse why a white male didn't get the job, when it wasn't the issue. 

And if you look at college classrooms, the percentage of women has been steadily increasing and in many fields - not traditional women's fields - they dominate.  And they go into the labor market more qualified.  And birth control and abortion rights and access to better jobs means they don't have to get married to make it in our society.  For many white males, things are getting scary.  Their white privilege doesn't give them as many free passes.  Things are more equal and they have to work harder to keep up.  Plus the whole economic system is less benevolent as the right has torn down private sector pensions and is working now to do the same with public sector pensions. 

And the proof for many that discrimination no longer exists, is our black President.  My sense is that his election, for many, was the last straw.  It indicated to the many who still harbor white superiority in their hearts, the end of life as they know it.  Just google White Supremacy or White Nationalism to see that skin color still is the most important characteristic for many. 

The Gender Gap and the Elections

When I hear things like, Obama is 20 points ahead of Romney in the female vote, it suggests several things to me:

1.   The Republicans represent the white male who feels under siege, but who doesn't get the points I'm trying to make in this post - that whatever their problems, their paths to success have traditionally been easier than everyone else's.  But that looking at race and gender simply distracts from the real problem - the political and economic system that distributes the benefits less widely today than it has in years and years.

2.   The various actions of Republicans that cause women to prefer Obama - the so called 'war on women' - which includes obstacles to contraception and abortion (while Viagra is covered in health insurance) reflect an attempt to reconstruct some of the obstacles to women that have been taken down.

3.  If the Republicans don't 'get' women, I suspect it's also true that Democrats don't 'get' white males.  They are hurting.  What was once the domain of white males is increasingly populated by others.  Where once only white males competed, or competed with special passes (Veterans preferences used to be mostly for white males)  there is now competition.  Individual white males never understood that part of their success was due to being white males and not their inherent ability. Their stories of black and female inferiority justified their positions on top.   Now the playing field is getting more level, it looks to many white males, that the tables have turned, that they are being discriminated against.  Usually this just means the deck is no longer as stacked in their favor.  

With the news touting the gender gap for Obama, I suspect that Obama needs to pay attention to the disaffected white male.  Not to pander, but to show some understanding that they aren't all feeling powerful.  That their lives aren't all easy.  That his policies aren't abandoning them.  Or many in the undecided middle will see the women going for Obama as a sign that they need to go right.  

Some Historical Perspective For Anchorage's Prop 5

"The president opened the meeting with small talk and then, in typical fashion, turned raconteur, entertaining his audience with political anecdote.  To Roosevelt it seemed so natural that everyone should be fond of hearing his charming stories that he was somewhat taken aback when Randolph broke in.  "Mr. President, time is running out.  You are quite busy, I know.  But what we want to talk with you about is the problem of jobs for Negroes in defense industries."
"Well, Phil, what do you want me to do?"
"Mr. President, we want you to issue an Executive Order making it mandatory that Negroes be permitted to work in these plants."
"Well, Phil, you know I can't do that  . . . In any event I couldn't do anything unless you called off this march of yours.  Questions like this can't be settled with a sledge hammer  . . What would happen if Irish and Jewish people were to march on Washington?  It would create resentment among the American people because such a march would be considered as an effort to coerce the government and make it do certain things."
"I'm sorry Mr. President, the march cannot be called off."
"How many people do you plan to bring?"
"One hundred thousand, Mr. President."
The astronomical figure staggered belief.  Perhaps Randolph was bluffing.  Turning to White, Roosevelt asked, "Walter, how many people will really march?"  White's eyes did not blink.  "One hundred thousand, Mr. President,"  he affirmed. (p. 251)

I've been reading Doris Kearns Goodwin's No Ordinary Time and I can't help but notice parallels between racial discrimination in the 1940s and sexual-orientation discrimination today.  The same sort of belief today that gays are less deserving of full equality was voiced openly about the group then known, politely, as Negroes or Coloreds.  The same "things have always worked this way, so don't change it" was heard both times. I'm sure that people who voted No on Proposition 5 say that it was a different situation.  They are kidding themselves if they believe that.  Listen to what went on then.  If they can't hear the parallels today, it's because they don't want to. 

The meeting above was the culmination of a number of policies and events where American blacks were discriminated against, outrageously (though then, perfectly acceptably to most white Americans) in the military and in the government funded defense industry.  Here's the build up to that meeting - and the result at the end.

In early September [1940], she had received a disturbing letter from a Negro doctor, Henry Davis.  "At a time when everyone is excited about increasing the size of the army,"  he told her, he had been refused an active commission simply because of his dark skin.  "I am greatly disappointed and am very much depressed,"  he admitted, "gradually losing faith, ambition and confidence in myself." (p. 165)

It was not until the porters' convention, however, when she talked at great length with Randolph*, that Eleanor came to appreciate the full dimensions of the situation.  The discrimination Dr. Davis had experienced, Eleanor was told,

*A. Philip Randolph had founded the journal The Messenger  in Harlem in his twenties and created the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and was a major black spokesperson at the time. See the video below.

was widespread.  In Charlotte, North Carolina, a Negro high-school teacher holding a master's degree from Columbia had been severely beaten by white soldiers stationed at a recruiting office when he sought information for his pupils.  At the University of Minnesota, Walter Robinson had successfully completed the Civil Aeronautics Authority flight-training program, finishing thirteenth in a class of three hundred.  But when he applied for enlistment in the Army Air corps, he was told that it was useless to complete the application.  "There is no place for a Negro in the Air Corps," the lieutenant in charge said.  Dr. Winston Willoughby, a Negro dentist had received an equally peremptory response when he sought a commission in the Dental Corps.  "Hell, if you said you were colored I would have saved you a trip,"  he was told.  "There are no colored dentists in the Dental Corps."

The situation in the navy, where four thousand Negroes served, was even more hypocritical.  To the extent the navy had opened its doors to Negroes, it was strictly as mess men, assigned to make the officers' beds, serve their meals, clean their rooms, shine their shoes, and check their laundry.  Unaware of this depressing situation, many Negroes had been drawn into the navy by false promises, only to find, once they were in, that there was no room for advancement.  (pp. 165-166)

Kearns goes on to write about 15 sailors aboard the USS Philadelphia who wrote a letter to a black newspaper - the Pittsburgh Courier. [It still exists, you can read it at the link.] They warned mothers and fathers to not let their black sons enlist because they too would be treated like servants.

The navy's reaction to the published letter was swift and severe.  The signers were placed in the brig, indicted for conduct prejudicial to good order, and given dishonorable discharges for "unfitness"  . . .

Despite the punishment exacted, the courageous action of the fifteen mess men, like a small rock tumbling over the side of a mountain, initiated an avalanche of protest that would eventually change the face of the navy.  With cynicism and hope existing side by side under the charged conditions of impending war, hundreds of Negro mess men in dozens of ships began to speak up.  "Since other mess attendants . . . are putting up such a stiff fight for equality,"  three Negro sailors wrote from the USS Davis in San Diego, "we feel it only right for us . . . to do our share . . . Before now, we were afraid of the consequences if we fought naval discrimination, but now that we have outside help which has given us new hope, we are prepared and determined to do our part on the inside to the last man."   . . . (pp. 166-167)

A bill in Congress, drafted because of the pressure mounting for better treatment of Negroes in the military declared,

"In the selection and training of men under this act . . . there shall be no discrimination against any person on account of race or color."  The problem, Negro leaders recognized, was the next sentence in the bill, which promised that "no man shall be inducted for training and service unless he is acceptable" to the army and "until adequate provision shall have been made for shelter, sanitary facilities, water supplies, heating and lighting arrangements, medical care and hospital accommodations."  (p. 167)

Earlier, Kearns had mentioned that while Eleanor argued for what should  be done, her husband was concerned with what could be done.

"I did not choose the tools with which I must work,"  he told Walter White in the mid-thirties, explaining his refusal to endorse a federal antilynching campaign [!].  "Had I been permitted to choose them I would have selected quite different ones.  But I've got to get legislation passed by Congress to save America.  The southerners by reason of the seniority rule in Congress are chairmen or occupy strategic places on most of the Senate and House committees.  If I come out for the anti-lynching bill, they will block every bill I ask Congress to pass to keep America from collapsing.  I just can't take that risk." (p. 163)

Is Obama weighing Guantanamo decisions the same way?

A. Philip Randolph [see video] had been talking with Eleanor Roosevelt over the years and saw the outrage over how blacks were treated in the military as an issue that was uniting blacks like no other issue.  An initial meeting with Roosevelt and the Secretary of the Navy and Assistant Secretary of War produced little.  Goodwin quotes War Secretary Stimson's diary,

"I sent [Undersecretary Robert] Patterson to this meeting, because I really had so much  else to do," Stimson recorded.  "According to him it was a rather amusing affair - the President's gymnastics as to politics.  I saw the same thing happen 23 years ago when Woodrow Wilson yielded to the same sort of demand and appointed colored officers to several of the Divisions that went over to France, and the poor fellows made perfect fools of themselves . . .  Leadership is not embedded in the Negro race yet and to try to make commisioned officers to lead the men into battle is only to work disaster to both.  Colored troops do very well under white officers but every time we try to lift them a little beyond where they can go, disaster and confusion follow. . . I hope for heaven's sake they won't mix the white and colored troops together in the same units for then we shall certainly have trouble."

She goes on to say his remarks are mirrored in an Army War College Report from 1925 that included,

"In the process of evolution  . . . the American negro has not progressed as far as other sub species of the human family. . ." (p. 169)

Predictably, the policy statement that emerged was disappointing to Randolph and the other black leaders.  It promised to create Negro units within the branches of the military but not to

 "intermingle colored and white enlisted personnel in the same regimental organizations.  This policy has proven satisfactory over a long period of years and to make changes would produce situations destructive to morale and detrimental to the preparation for national defense."  (pp. 170-171)

 There were demonstrations against the policy in New York and Goodwin quotes an editorial in the Crisis,

"We are inexpressibly shocked. . . that a President at a time of national peril should surrender so completely to enemies of democracy who would destroy national unity by advocating segregation."

. . .What the Negroes wanted at that moment, Hopkins was told, was the promotion of Colonel Benjamin Davis, grandson of a slave, to brigadier general, and the appointment of William Hastie, dean of Howard Law School, as a civilian aide to Secretary Stimson.  Change in the structure of the military would only come, Negroes now believed, if strong black men were placed in positions of leadership. (pp. 171-172)

 Eleanor's agenda soon included concerns about the State Department not processing visas of Jewish refugees from the Nazis.  Goodwin quotes a memo from the State Department's man in charge of refugee matters, Breckinridge Long:

"We can delay and effectively stop for a temporary period of indefinite length the number of immigrants into the Untied States.  We could do this by simply advising our consuls to put every obstacle in the way and to require additional evidence and to resort to various administrative advices which would postpone and postpone and postpone the granting of the visas." (p. 173)

Can you see a familiar pattern here?  People who espouse flat out falsehoods that they may believe, but, nevertheless, are totally wrong.  People who prevent change and fight to keep things the way they have 'always' been.  People, apparently, oblivious or uncaring that their efforts bring tremendous harm and hardship to others.   People who obstruct justice any way they can.

The strategies and behaviors have been on display nationally and locally on the issue of LBGT rights.  Different falsehoods, but similar obstructions. Today we can't prove what they are doing in private, but if we look to history and the access time brings to past events, we can see that eventually many of today's duplicities will be revealed. But after how much unnecessary pain?

The 1940 election is over and Roosevelt is serving his unprecedented (and never to be repeated)  3rd term.  There is a strike at the Ford Motor company - the only auto company not unionized.  And the only company treating blacks relatively well, well enough that the company is able to convince them that if they unionize, the unions won't treat them as well.  Eventually though, black leaders convince them to come out of the plant and join the white workers on strike and the Ford strike ends in major victory for the union.  But not without a public relations cost because they are depicted as holding up the war effort.

That June of 1941, a storm was gathering in the black community.  Though some progress had been made in opening doors to blacks in the armed forces, discrimination in the mushrooming defense industry continued unabated.  All over the country, the new war plants were refusing to hire blacks.  "Negroes will be considered only as janitors,"  the general manager of North American Aviation publicly asserted.  "It is the company policy not to employ them as mechanics and aircraft workers."  In Kansas City, Standard Steel told the Urban League, "We have not had a negro working in 25 years and do not plan to start now."  And from Vultee Air in California a blanket statement was issued.  "It is not the policy of this company to employ other than of the Caucasian race." [Not only is the idea bad, but the prose is terrible too.]

 The black press abounded with stories of flagrant discrimination.  In early 1941, a hundred NYA trainees were sent to Quoddy Village to work in an aircraft factory near Buffalo.  One of the hundred was black, and he was the only one not hired, even though he had the best grades of the group.  "Negroes who are experienced machinists are being refused employment,"  the Pittsburgh Courier observed, "while white men and boys who have had no training in this work are being hired and trained later."

I would note that this is the reason that employment discrimination is unacceptable.  If enough of the employers hire (or refuse to hire) a group of people based on personal characteristics and NOT on merit, that group of people is shut out of good jobs.  People's personal feelings about having blacks mix with whites was just as emotional, if not more so, than some people's feelings about gays and lesbians today.

This is getting really long.  You can read this all in detail in Doris Kearns Goodwin's book  No Ordinary Time.  Let me get you back to that meeting between the President and Randolph. Randolph began organizing a black march on Washington.

The time had come, Randolph argued, setting the strategic stage for the civil-rights movement of later decades, to mobilize the power and pressure that resided, not in the few, not in the intelligentsia, but in the masses, the organized masses.  "Only power,"  he observed, "can effect the enforcement and adoption of a given policy, however, meritorious it may be." . . .

". . .we ought to get 10,000 Negroes and march down Pennsylvania Avenue and protest against the discriminatory practices in this rapidly expanding economy"    (p. 247)

Roosevelt tried to dissuade him.  He raised concerns about sanitation, housing, and violence if 10,000 blacks marched on the capital.  Eventually Eleanor convinced her husband that he needed to talk with Randolph again.  And they meet.

"The president opened the meeting with small talk and then, in typical fashion, turned raconteur, entertaining his audience with political anecdote.  To Roosevelt it seemed so natural that everyone should be fond of hearing his charming stories that he was somewhat taken aback when Randolph broke in.  "Mr. President, time is running out.  You are quite busy, I know.  But what we want to talk with you about is the problem of jobs for Negroes in defense industries."
"Well, Phil, what do you want me to do?"
"Mr. President, we want you to issue an Executive Order making it mandatory that Negroes be permitted to work in these plants."
"Well, Phil, you know I can't do that  . . . In any event I couldn't do anything unless you called off this march of yours.  Questions like this can't be settled with a sledge hammer  . . What would happen if Irish and Jewish people were to march on Washington?  It would create resentment among the American people because such a march would be considered as an effort to coerce the government and make it do certain things."
"I'm sorry Mr. President, the march cannot be called off."
"How many people do you plan to bring?"
"One hundred thousand, Mr. President."
The astronomical figure staggered belief.  Perhaps Randolph was bluffing.  Turning to White, Roosevelt asked, "Walter, how many people will really march?"  White's eyes did not blink.  "One hundred thousand, Mr. President,"  he affirmed. (p. 251)

Years later, NAACP leader Roy Wilkins suggested that it may well have been a bluff on Randolph's part, but what an extraordinary bluff it was.  "A tall courtly black man with Shakespearean diction and the stare of an eagle had looked the patrician FDR in the eye - and made him back down." . . . Never before in the history of the nation," the Chicago Defender observed, had Negroes, from illiterate sharecroppers in Arkansas to college students in Chicago, "ever been so united in an objective, and so insistent upon an action being taken."  When the president signed the executive order, "faith in a democracy which Negroes had begun to feel had strayed from its course was renewed throughout the nation."

When I read "illiterate sharecroppers in Arkansas" I regretted that my neighbor Mildred Nash is no longer alive. She was at the time a sharecropper in Arkansas. How I'd love to share this passage with her and have her tell me what she knew of these events then.

In any case, history, if we know how to read it, can enlighten us about the present. But we must be open to things that contradict what we believe as well as things that support what we believe.

Taking the Dogs Up Perseverance Trail

Paul goes for regular runs and hikes and picks up his friends' dogs to go with him.  It's nice to be able to walk into the woods - no car - from your house in downtown Juneau.  The evening (last Thursday) was warm - mid to high 50s - and soon we'd passed all the houses and were at the wooden planking part of the road.  But the road was closed to vehicles while they were completely redoing it.  Two years ago when we spent the legislative session here, they'd replaced some of the planks, but it was nothing this extensive. Here's a March 2010 post  about the trail.  

There was a huge avalanche across the trail.  I'd been warned about avalanches in 2010, but there was a lot less snow that year. 

Paul seemed to think we were more likely to be killed by falling rocks than snow sliding down the mountain.

The sign says bikes should yield to runners and hikers.  We didn't see any bikes.


The video shows the second avalanche area and Paul and the dogs coming back from the trail to the waterfall. Apollo, the young black dog, has so much energy which you can see as a carries a stick longer than he is.











And here we are on the way back, climbing down from the first avalanche.

And here we're back in town, almost home.